The Color of Light
Page 1
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
A CONVERSATION WITH KAREN WHITE
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
Praise for the novels of Karen White
“Karen White is one author you won’t forget. . . . This is a masterpiece in the study of relationships. Brava!”
—Reader to Readers Reviews
“This is not only romance at its best—this is a fully realized view of life at its fullest.”
—Readers & Writers Ink Reviews
“After the Rain is an elegantly enchanting Southern novel. . . . Fans will recognize the beauty of White’s evocative prose.”
—WordWeaving
“In the tradition of Catherine Anderson and Deborah Smith, Karen White’s After the Rain is an incredibly poignant contemporary bursting with Southern charm.”
—Patricia Rouse, Rouse’s Romance Readers Groups
“Don’t miss this book!”
—Rendezvous
“Character-driven and strongly written . . . After the Rain . . . marks Karen White as a rising star and an author to watch.”
—Romantic Times Book Club Magazine
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First published by NAL Accent, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
First Printing, June 2005
Copyright © Karen White, 2005
Conversation Guide copyright © Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2005
All rights reserved
FICTION FOR THE WAY WE LIVE
REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA:
White, Karen (Karen S.)
The color of light/Karen White.
p. cm.
eISBN : 978-1-101-10937-3
1. Pawleys Island (SC)—Fiction. 2. Mothers and daughters—Fiction. 3. Seaside resorts—Fiction. 4. Missing persons—Fiction. 5. Pregnant women—Fiction. 6. Single mothers—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3623.H5776C
813’.6—dc22
Set in Adobe Garamond
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PUBLISHER’S NOTE
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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This book is dedicated to my precious Meghan, who gave me the title, and to my God, from whom all good things come.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book was a few years in the making, with lots of stops and starts. I would like to thank the many people who supported me during the stops and made me keep going: my fellow writers in GRW, especially Debby Giusti; Sandra Popham, my “number one fan”; and the most wonderfully supportive critique group imaginable: Wendy Wax, Susan Crandall and Jenni Grizzle. A heartfelt thanks to all of you for being the soft buffer against the hard knocks.
Thanks also to the patience, love and support of my long-suffering family: Tim, Meghan and Connor. Thank you for not complaining (too much) about the packaged meals and piles of laundry and for making me laugh when I’m banging my head against the wall.
To the gracious people of Pawleys Island, South Carolina, thank you for sharing your inspiring island with a native wannabe, and to Chief of Police Guy Osborne, for insight on Pawleys Island law enforcement. I apologize in advance for any creative license on my part to make fact work with fiction.
Thanks, too, to Wally Lind, Senior Crime Scene Analyst. Your knowledge and willingness to help went way and above the call of duty and I am truly grateful.
Last, but not least, thank you to my agent, Karen Solem, for not giving up; to my editor, Cindy Hwang, for believing in this book; and to St. Jude, who really does listen.
But such a tide as moving seems asleep Too full for sound and foam
When that which drew from out the boundless deep Turns again home.
—“Crossing the Bar”
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
CHAPTER 1
JILLIAN PARRISH STOOD BAREFOOT IN HER BACKYARD, HER TOES curled into the cool grass, and wrapped her hands around the neck of her telescope. Peering through the narrow opening and pushing back her fear of dark spaces, she focused on the pinpoints of light that made up the constellation of Centaurus. She stepped back slowly, gazing out at the night sky, pretending the grass beneath her feet was gritty sand and that she could actually hear the ancient rhythm of the ocean rocking the stars to sleep. She thought of the immortal centaur as he begged
the gods to end his suffering, and how Zeus had mercifully let him die and then given him a place among the stars.
She sat down on the grass, wishing she had such an option. She spun the rings on her finger and shrugged. Her ex-husband wouldn’t care and her parents would simply not allow it. It would cause them the inconvenience of having to recall her name for the police report and see her each time she rose high above them in the heavens, her celestial face a constant reminder of their failure to create a child worthy of their notice.
She looked at the tiny diamond engagement ring nestled next to her grandmother’s gold band. Yes, there were other points of refuge besides being relegated to dangling in the sky for eternity. But as she had learned, they each carried a price. With one swift motion, she wrenched the diamond ring off her finger and threw it high into the night sky, the white stone blinking once in the light from the back porch bulb and then dropping back to earth like a falling star.
Hoisting herself up, Jillian sighed, silently thanking her grandmother for teaching her about fairy tales and mythology to soften the sharp edges of the life into which she had been born. Not that they had done anything to prepare her for ambitious young waitresses at Hooters or a husband who had finally given up trying to get as much love as he gave in a marriage.
Closing up the tripod and lifting the telescope, Jillian stumbled through the overgrown grass to the house to finish packing. She paused on the back steps, staring out into the Georgia night sky one last time. A shooting star blazed away its brief life across the heavens, and just as suddenly Jillian Parrish Ryan saw her life with the clarity of a woman full-grown. At thirty-two years old she could finally stop believing in fairy tales and happily-ever-afters and begin to recognize what really lived in the dark space under her bed.
“Jilly-bean?”
Keeping a hand on the expanding girth of her pregnant belly, Jillian turned to her seven-year-old daughter, the late March sun kissing her light blond hair and spinning it into gold. She slammed the back door of the Volvo wagon before answering. “What, sweetie?”
“Will the Easter Bunny be able to find our new house?”
She had forgotten all about bunnies, chocolate eggs and pastel hats. In the blur of the three months since the divorce she had found it difficult to remember to wash her hair or get out of bed, much less remember that Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny still roamed the landscape of her life. She lifted her hands and rubbed at her temples in the feeble hope that it might dissipate the headache that seemed to loom just below the surface. “Damn,” she said under her breath.
“You shouldn’t swear.” Grace tilted her face expectantly toward her mother. Jillian looked at her as if really seeing her for the first time in months and noticed that the blond bangs were too long. Her gaze dipped lower and she saw the sparkly red Dorothy shoes on the little feet, shoes she vaguely remembered throwing in the garbage. At least they weren’t white. Never white shoes before Easter. Jillian stopped herself in time. Her mother’s teachings always seemed to pick the worst times to come back and haunt her.
Jillian moved the hair off her daughter’s pale forehead. “Sorry—you’re right. I shouldn’t swear. And the Easter Bunny will find you, Gracie. Promise.”
Grace climbed into the backseat of the car. “Where’s Spot?”
As if on cue, a black-and-gray-striped feline streaked past Jillian and into the car, settling his plump bottom onto Grace’s lap. He gazed at Jillian with cool green eyes, and a look of understanding settled between them. I’ll tolerate you in these close quarters and you’ll tolerate me. It’s just the three of us and we’ve got to learn how to get along. Jillian watched as Grace hugged the cat that thought it was a dog, and sent him a look of acknowledgment before shutting the door.
With one last look at the brick colonial that had been the corner-stone of her life for almost ten years, she spied Rick’s rocking chair, the one piece of furniture he wanted and that had not been sold, moved or put into storage. It shifted in the wind as if waving good-bye, the final assault on Jillian’s nerves. Climbing up the steps, she took the piece of gum out of her mouth and stuck it to the wicker seat where it would melt in the unseasonably hot March sun. Then, without another glance, she climbed behind the steering wheel, the child inside her kicking furiously in protest, and put the car in gear to begin the longest journey of her life.
The distance between Atlanta and Pawleys Island, South Carolina, was not particularly long or difficult, yet her hands clutched the steering wheel in a white-knuckled grasp the entire way. She’d never been on her own before, never traveled any distance at all sitting in the driver’s seat. She’d always been a granddaughter or daughter and then a wife, all of which excused her from the necessity of sitting behind the steering wheel and determining which direction she should go. Inching forward in the right lane, she hugged the shoulder and ignored the glances from other drivers as they veered around her, leaving her in their hasty dust.
Gracie sang to herself as she colored in her coloring books, and then slept. Spot nestled next to her, his watchful eyes finally closing. Jillian risked another glance in the rearview mirror and saw Grace’s little mouth turned upward in a smile. Grandma Parrish said Jillian used to smile in her sleep, too. It’s what happens, she’d explained, when little children talk to the angels. Jillian smirked as she faced the road again. If only the angels would give her a few minutes of their time, she could give them an earful.
Her daughter sighed and turned her head, and Jillian caught sight of the single dimple on her left cheek as she grinned a lazy sleeper’s grin. Jillian’s throat tightened, and she realized anew why she had named her Grace. Since her birth, her daughter had been the one patch of thick, green grass on the stony mountain of her years in this world. They didn’t have anything in common, and they didn’t even resemble each other, but somewhere, deep down, she felt that there was something that anchored the two of them together. She just wasn’t sure what it was.
Jillian looked away, feeling the gnawing guilt hit her again. The guilt of knowing that she had never wanted to bring a child into this world in the first place. She almost laughed when the baby inside her kicked her ribs, reminding her of his presence. Two children. How had this happened? She did laugh softly this time, finding it so much easier than the alternative.
Traffic thinned as she turned off onto Highway 501 South, and she found the courage to reach over to the radio and turn up the music from a country station. A heavy veil of purple-tinged clouds cupped the sky like a father’s hand under his newborn’s head, and her spirit shifted in the sludge around her soul. Although she had called Atlanta home for more than thirty years, the briny air of the salt marshes of South Carolina’s low country always welcomed her back as an absent and much-loved daughter.
Perhaps it was the memories of South Carolina summers that made the humid air and waving palmettos seem more like home than the city she was raised in. Jillian had been allowed to visit her grandmother at her beach house on Pawleys Island every year, and those summers still lived in Jillian’s memory as bright spots on the bleak horizon of her childhood. The long days spent with Grandma Parrish had been days filled with clam digging and shell collecting and then, as she grew older, her first crush and her first kiss. But those summers had been her refuge, and she knew that she and her daughter could use a dose of that now. Even with her grandmother long gone, the abiding affinity Jillian felt for her grandmother’s island was as fresh in her heart as the smell of summer grass.
Jillian squinted in the dimness, following the signs for US Highway 17 toward Georgetown. She drove even slower, noticing the new putt-putt golf courses, beach furniture stores, and garish tourist shops with front doors disguised as the mouth of a shark. She turned away, looking straight ahead, passing Murrells Inlet and Litchfield Beach. She checked the map again on the seat beside her without really seeing it. Almost there.
Dusk descended lower, the purple clouds now giving way to hulking dark shadows as she pulled
off the highway onto the small two-lane North Causeway Road. It had been more than sixteen years since she had last been to Pawleys, but the way was as familiar to her as the back of her own hand. The night sounds of the marsh hovered close, filling her with an odd mixture of apprehension and excitement. She turned down the radio, now playing oldies Carolina beach music, to listen more closely to the bellowing bullfrogs.
Grace stirred in the backseat and then bolted upright, wide awake. “Jilly-bean—stop the car. Lauren says we need to stop the car now.”
Jillian’s hands slipped on the steering wheel. Why that name, Gracie? Of all the names you use for your imaginary friends, why that one? She forced her voice to remain soft. “We’re almost there, honey. I think you were just having a bad dream.” She glanced to the side of the road where the right shoulder seemed to disappear into the marsh, the lights from the old Pelican Inn glowing in the distance. No other car lights gleamed ahead or behind. “Everything’s fine.”
Something quick and dark and low to the ground ran out in front of the car. She pressed hard on the brakes, the ABS pumping rhythmically. Glowing yellow eyes stared back at her as she waited for the sickening thump of solid steel hitting the soft body of an animal. Instinctively, she jerked the steering wheel to the left, sending the car careening across the road and into a metal guardrail, the air bag jabbing her sharply in the face.
Blinking her eyes as she sat in the suddenly still car, she tried to focus on the dashboard, where the lights glowed with dim persistence, while something warm and sticky dripped from her forehead and into her lap.
Grace unbuckled her seat belt with a soft snap, then climbed on top of the armrest to stroke her mother’s cheek. “It’s all right, Jilly-bean. Everything’s going to be all right.”